Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I thought I would share some dairy-free things I've been finding today for something special to make this St. Paddy's Day:

7 Healthy Green St. Patrick's Day Recipes - All of the recipes are dairy-free and gluten-free! Including the Green Tea Latte and the Creamy, Cheesy Avocado Pasta.

Go Dairy-Free: St. Patrick's Day - The Healthy Vegan Shamrock Shake looks particularly tasty.

Vegan St. Patrick's Day Recipes- Oh, if only I had the ingredients for the vegan Irish Cream Chocolate Cheesecake...

Oh She Glows - Angela's got all kinds of different recipes to try

Are you making anything special for St. Patrick's Day?

-Free Recipe Friday: Dairy-Free Waffles

It is Friday: time for a -free recipe!

Something we make fairly often around here, now that I've found that it's actually easier to do than pancakes, is waffles.

At first, I found a super easy recipe and it worked well despite not using cow's milk. Then I kept reading other recipes that had some extra steps, but there were some common extra steps: separate the white from the yolk, put the yolk in first, mix it up, beat the egg white on the side until it becomes stiff and then fold it in. I don't understand the chemistry behind it, but both of my kids have said that waffles taste better when I do this.

And with that, here is my recipe for

Dairy-Free Waffles

Mix together in a large bowl:
1 3/4 all-purpose flour
2 tbps sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

In a medium bowl, beat:
2 egg yolks (set aside the egg whites in a separate bowl)
1 3/4 cup of your choice of non-dairy milk
1/2 cup of cooking oil or dairy-free margarine (warning: I tried coconut oil once; 1/2 proved to be too much)
1 tsp vanilla (I let it overflow just a tad)

Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and mix just until moistened.

In your separate egg-white bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff. Fold them into the batter.

Pour a cup or so into your preheated and lightly greased waffle maker and cook according to your maker's instructions.

I have a waffle maker that makes 4 waffles at a time and this makes 12-16 waffles, depending on how much batter I actually put each time.

---

If you like little kitchen gadget things, to separate the egg white from the yolk can be done with a separator. You can check some out at Amazon.com. I have one that's similar to this one that works well--and prevents me from inadvertently piercing the yolk with a jagged eggshell edge:

Dairy-Free Nanaimo Bars

Here it is, Christmas Day, and I still haven't posted all of my dairy-free goodies! Ah well! It's still the Christmas season and treats are good for New Year's too.

I tried to find a dairy-free nanaimo bar recipe that had ingredients that I had in my house, which proved an impossibility. So then I started comparing recipes to create my own to try, but I ran out of time, other people in the house were impatient for Nanaimo bars, so I bought the President's Choice nanaimo bar kit:

It is dairy-free and asks that you add butter and milk to it. My usual dairy-substitute is vegan margarine but because Nanaimo bars already tend to be quite soft, I decided to use Earth Balance Original; if you've never bought either, the vegan margarine is very soft even in the fridge whereas Earth Balance is solid. For the milk, I used rice milk. And that's it! Simple substitutions for a delicious treat:

The box doesn't say it, but let it harden in the fridge until the top chocolate is set, cut, and then let it set even longer, at least a couple of hours, if you can, before trying to remove any of the pieces. And after that, you'll want to keep them in the fridge because outside of the fridge, the Earth Balance doesn't stay very firm!

At the moment, the only places I know of for sure to find these mixes is at The Real Canadian Superstore locations. Other Loblaws' locations may also have them. If you are reading this from outside Canada, unfortunately, I don't know of any place else where they would be sold and can't even find any means of purchasing them online. Robin Hood used to sell a Nanaimo bar mix, but as far as I can tell, they don't anymore. (If you find a source for any brand of mix, please post!) Which means that if you aren't in Canada near a Superstore, you're kind of out of luck for this recipe. Sorry! If you can get the mix, then enjoy. :)

-Free Recipe Friday: Dairy-Free Christmas Shortbread Cookies

Today's recipe is just like the Rice Krispie squares recipe, which makes me feel a little like I'm cheating with these recipes, but really, I want you to know just how easy it is to make at least some things dairy-free.

Why am I saying it's cheating? Because I'm just going to give you a normal shortbread cookie recipe (well, one designed for a cookie shooter) and substitute dairy-free margarine in it.

Yes, it really is that easy. I have family still making two separate batches of desserts and things like pancakes when we get together when it is just so unnecessary most of the time. They'll make a batch of pancakes with soy milk or rice milk for me but regular for everybody else, for example. Their lives would be much simpler if they just made one batch for everybody.

In any case, I have a cookie shooter that is ancient and still works---omg, I just looked it up and found it on Amazon

Wear Ever Cookie Shooter

--and my daughter specifically asked for shortbread Christmas cookies made with the cookie shooter. Growing up, we always bought the packaged mixed and then just added a little milk to the dough to make it soft enough to go through the shooter. This time, I sought out a recipe specifically for it and found this one from http://allrecipes.com/recipe/cookie-press-shortbread/ . They're already almost gone, so it's clearly a winner!

Dairy-Free Shortbread Cookie Press/Shooter Cookies

(Um, yes, some were eaten before the picture was taken. They had to be taste-tested. :D )

*1 cup of butter substitute (I used Becel vegan; try different things to see how they work with the recipe)
*1 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour
*1/2 icing sugar (confectioner's sugar)
*1/4 tsp vanilla extract
*1/2 cup cornstarch

My additions to the recipe:
*food colouring
*peppermint and/or almond flavouring

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

In a medium mixing bowl, cream together butter, confectioners' sugar, and vanilla until smooth with electric mixer. Stir in flour and cornstarch. (**) Pop dough into your cookie press, and away you go! Press cookies out onto ungreased cookie sheets. (Add sprinkles, if you wish.)
Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the peaks are golden.

**If you are wanting coloured or flavoured cookies, separate the dough into batches to then remix with your choice of colouring and/or flavouring.

Enjoy!

Dairy-Free Christmas Baking: Rice Krispie Squares

Finally, here it is, the first of my Christmas dairy-free recipes! These recipes are ones for the whole family even if it's just one person who is dairy-free (as is the case in my house). No need to make a batch with the dairy and a batch without, just make them dairy-free and they will get gobbled up.

I love Rice Krispie Squares. So do my husband and kids. And the great thing is if you are choosing or have to eat dairy-free, they are sooooo easy to make dairy-free.

You can just use the recipe on the box and use a butter substitute--like vegan margarine or Earth Balance--but I find the recipe on the box isn't chewy enough. And they make vanilla optional. The vanilla shouldn't be optional. Trust me.

This recipe can also easily be made vegan and gluten-free.

DAIRY-FREE CHEWY RICE KRISPIE SQUARES

1/4 cup dairy-free margarine or "butter" spread; I used Becel Vegan
250 g (or about 40 regular marshmallows; don't be afraid to put more than 40 in; equivalent to 5 cups of mini marshmallows)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
5 cups Rice Krispies cereal (if you want it even chewier/gooier, go for 4-4.5 cups)

*Melt the margarine in a large pot (saucepan). Use low heat. When the margarine is completely melted, add in the marshmallows and stir with a mixing spoon until smooth. Remove from heat.
*Add the vanilla and stir.
*Add the cereal and stir. Make sure to get down into the "corners" of the pot and really mix things until the cereal is coated. If you are going for 4-4.5 cups, it'll be a little harder to mix things so the cereal is coated evenly, but they'll still taste good if you can't.
*Use your dairy-free margarine to butter a 9x13 pan (consider using and 8x8 if you went for the 4 cups; you'll have thicker squares, but with the 9x13, they are very thin). Pour/scrape the Rice Krispie mix into the pan. Use a buttered (buttered with your dairy-free margarine, of course) spatula to push the mixture into place and smooth it out.
*Cut into your desired size of squares.

**Vegan alternative: Make sure your margarine is vegan and use vegan marshmallows.
**Gluten-free alternative: Use gluten-free Rice Krispies or other brand of gluten-free rice crisp cereal.


That's it! Stay tuned for the shortbread cookies. :)
---

For a little fun: How many of you remember this commercial?

-Free Recipe Friday: Vegan Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl Ice Cream

I have a delicious dairy-free/vegan/gluten-free recipe for you today! One of the many things people miss when going dairy-free for whatever reason is ice cream. I'm one of those people. I know people who have said they could never go dairy-free because they wouldn't be able to give up ice cream. Let's face it: ice cream is important to many people. There are some delicious non-dairy ice creams available but the better ones come in tiny containers tend to cost more than a typical 3-scoop ice cream cone! Making it yourself cuts back on costs and lets you make exactly what you want with the ingredients you want.

Today's recipe, Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl comes from The Vegan Scoop

1 cup soymilk, divided
2 tbsp arrowroot powder
1 cup soy creamer (my note: Silk makes original and French vanilla; both taste very good in this recipe)
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips
1 tbsp vanilla extract (yes, even if you use the French vanilla creamer)
3/4 cup peanut butter (I use regular, store-bought peanut butter with sugar in it)

In a small bowl combine 1/4 cup of the soymilk with arrowroot and set aside.

Mix soy creamer, remaining 3/4 cup soymilk, sugar, cocoa powder and chocolate chips in a saucepan and cook over low heat. (Not too low or it'll take forever!) Once mixture begins to boil, remove from heat and immediately add arrowroot cream. This will cause the liquid to thicken noticeably. Add vanilla extract.

Refrigerate mixture until chilled, approximately 2 to 3 hours. (Elsewhere in the book, he recommends letting it chill overnight.) Freeze according to ytes of freezing, swirl in peanut butter.

Yield: 1 quart

-----


My one piece of advice when making this is to not let the ice cream mix too long after you've added the peanut butter. While you can still taste the peanut butter and the combination of the chocolate and peanut butter is amazing, the peanut butter can end up mixing in very quickly and you lose the swirl. As you can see here:

---
Don't have an ice cream maker? Check these out. I have the second one and am very pleased with it.

                    

-Free Recipe Friday: Amazing Oven-Fried French Fries

French fries are gluten-free and dairy-free and if you make them yourself at home rather than buying the frozen kind, you can be sure of the ingredients and no contamination!

They do take some extra time, especially if you don't have a French fry cutter. If you are cutting by hand as I do, just a word of warning: don't make the fries too thin. They will get too crispy. Also, despite the recipe instructions, the lowest position in my oven is actually too low, as I discovered yesterday when I put it to the lowest position for the first time. I also used olive oil and they are just fine with olive oil instead of vegetable oil.

This week's recipe is off-site, so you'll need to visit http://www.instructables.com/id/Crispy-Oven-Baked-French-Fries/ to check it out. These fries are absolutely worth the trouble to make!

Free Recipe Friday! GFCF Banana Bread Bars

I have to highly praise this book and recommend it for gluten-free eaters, whether they have teens (kids!) or not:

Cooking for Your Gluten-Free Teen: Everyday Foods the Whole Family Will Love

I'm not entirely sure how many things we've tried, but so far, we've loved it all! The latest is no exception. I made it dairy-free by using vegan margarine. It is not vegan as it uses eggs and dried egg whites, but I could see playing with it to make it vegan.

What is it? Banana bread squares!

I remembered to take a picture before we ate them all up! (Yay, me! :D) Now, my son has said they aren't as good as my usual banana bread recipe, but these bars are actually healthier, not having as much sugar in them and none of the oil my usual recipe has. I would almost not even guess that they are gluten-free, they are so spongy. And clearly, this picture shows they are good as they are being eaten.

I think I'm allowed to share the recipe, so I will! For the full recipe with their gluten-free all-purpose flour blend, you will have to get the book. This recipe is found on p. 67:

1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened, or nondairy alternative [I used Becel Vegan]
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups smoothly mashed very ripe bananas (about 3) [my note: I don't know if her bananas are huge, but it took me what I considered 4 large bananas]
2 tsp dried egg whites [I used Wilton Meringue Powder]
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground allspice

Preheat the oven to 350. Spray a 9x9" baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. [Okay, I used Crisco rather than a spray.] Line the bottom with parchment paper cut to fit. Spray the parchment with cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar until very smooth and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition, until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and bananas and beat well.

In a separate medium bowl, whisk the flour, dried egg whites, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, salt and allspice to mix.

Add the dry ingredients in batches to the banana mixture, beating well after each addition. The batter will get very thick, so beat only enough to mix well.

Scrape the banana batter into the prepared pan with a silicone spatula. Pat smooth and level with oiled palms or a lightly oiled silicone spatula. [I modified this step, simply used the spatula I was already using to try to level it all.] Bake for 30-35 minutes until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the over. Let cool on a rack. When cool, cut 3 by 4 for 12 bars.

Enjoy!

Are You Up for a 21-Day Vegan Cleanse Challenge?

Amy Layne over at DAMY Health is inviting people to try her 21-Day Vegan Cleanse Challenge. (No, she doesn't use the hyphen, but I can't write it against Canadian standards. ;) ) She is even giving the ebook away for FREE for a very limited time, from now until January 14. I've downloaded it myself and it is full of all kinds of great meal ideas/recipes to get you through the full 21 days.

That said, am I up for a 21-day vegan challenge? Part of me would love to shout, "Yes!" At the same time, the very thought of committing to all meals and snacks for 21 days to the challenge is, to say the least, overwhelming. I will have to look at the recipes more, especially the supper recipes, to see if I think I can make this work, especially since my family is not likely to be participating!

If you are going to join in, let me know! Having a challenge buddy would definitely help me commit and we could help each other along.

P.S. Many of her recipes are gluten-free!

Recipe Time: Hash Browns

About a month or so ago, in my search for wheat-free breakfast ideas for my daughter, plus armed with the knowledge that potatoes have feel-good "stuff" in them, I decided to make hash browns. I had always used the frozen kind before, but we didn't have any, so I found a recipe in my Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book. (This links to a newer version; the recipe might not be entirely the same!)

It does require some preparation, but mmmmmmm, they are so good fresh, we've had them several times over the past couple of months! I used to go through maybe a bag of potatoes in an entire year, throwing many out because they had spoiled; I'm on our 2nd bag of potatoes in the past 3 months now. lol. Add to it they are vegan and gluten-free, which makes the recipe an ideal choice for this blog. :D

Hash Brown Potatoes, my way
3 medium potatoes (1 pound)
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black better
3 tbsp butter or margarine (I use Becel's vegan margarine)

Their recipe calls for shredding the potatoes coarsely and making hash brown patties, essentially. What I do is dice the potatoes to have loose hash browns (I have not mastered cutting potatoes quickly, let me tell ya!). Melt the margarine in the pan, mix the rest of the ingredients together in a bowl, and cook on medium-low heat. It takes about 20 minutes or so once in the pan to cook. I actually make more than just 3 potatoes when I make them, so it does take a bit longer. But they come out delicious!!

After some have already been taken!

Now I'm off to see what sort of dairy-free, possibly even gluten-free, goodies I can make for Christmas. Only a week to go!

The Joys of Laryngitis

Are there joys in having laryngitis? Maybe not directly, but I am a firm believer that good can come out of any situation!

With the start of the school year, I and several others I know have been hit by various viruses. Today is my 16th day sick. My daughter has been sick even longer (started with one thing, didn't get over it before getting whatever it is that I have). This virus is one my body has been having a very hard time dealing with. My mind turns to, "Should I get to a doctor?" because it's lasting so long, and yet the symptoms are constantly mutating, signs of improvement are there and no evidence of bacterial infection. I am loathe to end up at some mediclinic with a doctor I don't know who could end up being a big antibiotic pusher and my own doctor isn't, but with my schedule lately and her hours...

I ended up having full-out laryngitis last week. Started losing my voice (while teaching a class!) Monday afternoon, completely lost my voice by that evening and spent the next two days voiceless. Completely voiceless. I've never lost my voice like that before. It didn't hurt, there wasn't any gross mucous blocking anything, I simply couldn't talk. I started getting it back a bit last Thursday, but here I am, more than a week later, my voice is still not completely back. Or I hope not--I would not want this to be my permanent voice!

Like I said above, there is good to come out of this situation: I'm spending more time on myself, on relaxing during this hectic month, doing things I enjoy. I'm refocusing, however slowly, on how I eat. (I feel like an alcoholic who has fallen off the wagon; I suppose I'm an notveryhealthyfood-aholic?) On how my kids eat.

And that's what illness is for sometimes, I think: to get us to set things straight, to remind us that we have strayed from the direction that will serve us best. While the illness itself should not be seen as a blessing, in my opinion, there are blessings that can come out of it, if we are willing to be open to whatever it is we need to "hear."

This being ill did lead me to discover a lovely drink that I find very soothing on a sore throat (or one unable to speak!):

• warm water (almost to the point of hot) in a coffee mug
• honey (1/2-1 Tbs.); if your farmer's market has honey and you have always had store-bought honey, consider trying the farmer's market honey. My farmer's market honey is more expensive but it tastes so extraordinary compared to store-bought, I will never buy store-bought again!
• squeeze of a lemon wedge

Stir the honey until it dissolves in the warm water (I admit, I tend to start with hot water, let the honey dissolve faster and the water cool down to quite warm before drinking) and then squeeze a lemon wedge into it. Stir and enjoy!

Saturday Mishmash

Okay, a mishmash of sorts:

I neglected eating greens for a while and restarted this past week. When I've had a lack like that and start up again, my body kind of goes, "Omg! Greens! Give me more!"

Being tired this morning (had two pieces of white toast, to boot), I decided to have an energizing--or at least non-energy-depleting--lunch:

 

I've probably shared a similar salad before. It's just so easy, combines different tastes so it makes it tasty and it's nutritionally satisfying! Super simple (and raw vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free, soy-free...):

*bed of lettuce (green leaf above)

*shredded organic carrot (if you don't normally eat organic carrots, have a look and see if the organic carrots available where you live are better than the regular; here, the regular carrots seem to be old and dried up and don't taste great and the organic are just gorgeous, fresh and delicious--absolutely worth the little bit extra $!)

*raw sunflower seeds

*raw pumpkin seeds

*raisins

*some olive oil

*some lemon juice

*sprinkling of Mrs. Dash

I feel great after eating that for lunch. I almost turned to some banana bread as a kind of dessert, but decided against it because I know it'll make me feel more drained--I'm already so tired today!

---

I have a new favourite chocolate milk. 

I've been seeing things with cheese and things like ice cream lately and have been really wanting to indulge in them. Which is crazy since I haven't wanted anything like that in ages and I know I won't actually like the taste and it will make me seriously ill. 

But it is a sign I've had before: I'm not getting enough calcium.

Other than trying to make sure to eat in a more balanced fashion, I was wishing I actually liked to drink the almond and rice milks and all that. I used to drink the Silk Soy Chocolate Milk when I'd get all cheese-cravy, but it left me mucousy, so I gave that up. I discovered this last week at the grocery store

and I love it! It tastes delicious, doesn't leave me mucousy and has helped me easily satisfy my calcium needs. I hesitated getting it since it is Lent and I had decided to not partake of sweet treats, but I figured that as long as I'm treating it like milk/calcium source rather than going nuts with it, it's okay. It also has more iron than the unsweetened Silk PureAlmond and lists it as a decent source of vitamin E. (Yay for dark chocolate! :) )

---

Random fact: Frogs can not swallow with their eyes open. (Why am I sharing this? My daughter's rattling off random facts she's reading from her iPod. ;) )

---

A friend of mine extolled the virtues of arnica to me a few years back, and then another friend more recently. The first friend really extolled them after she gave her 5-year old son doses of arnica after he was hit by a pickup truck (reckless driver! he's okay today!), fractured his skull and had swelling. When they went for the first check up, the doctor was quite surprised by how much the swelling had gone down, something my friend attributed to the arnica. Not having read a lot about homeopathy, I didn't know what to think.

My daughter bruised her ribs not long ago and the second friend reminded me immediately of using arnica. Okay, why not give it a shot? A single dose of arnica and the pain was completely gone. Coincidence?

I ended up with a nasty migraine a couple weeks ago. Looked up online if arnica might help with a migraine at all. I can't remember what the actual result of that search was, but I did end up stumbling on an article talking about arnica and some research done. The research was trying to discount arnica, having used it on patients who had had surgery (I think it was for carpal tunnel). A control group was given a placebo. The results? Both patients reported approximately the same amount of relief.

If I'd stopped reading there, I wouldn't have gotten the full information. Turns out the the people doing the research didn't pay attention to traditional recommended doses of arnica and gave way more than what a homeopath would ever give. The article went on to say that research has been done on cell responses to arnica and it has to be a low enough dose for the cells to respond. (I'm sorry, I find that fascinating!) We live in a society where we tend to think more is better, including for pain killers and inflammation reducers, but our bodies don't necessarily respond how we think they will.

In any case, I decided to use some arnica on my migraine and it did help a little. The real clincher was the following week, not this past Thursday but the Thursday before, I had my parent volunteer day. I woke up with a headache and tried the arnica; it helped a bit and Advil didn't. Got to the church for the volunteer day and noticed right away that the stairs seemed easier. Could my at-home stair training really have made that much difference in just a week? Ended up having another dose around lunch time, which didn't help the headache at all (had that darn thing ALL day) but I noticed, again, distinct ease with climbing the stairs.

I'm absolutely convinced now that the arnica helps with the inflammation in my iliotibial band, which meant that it was easier and there wasn't the usual pulling on my knees, causing pain. I will have to remember the arnica for my next parent duty day! The unfortunate thing: the brand I bought has lactose. *sigh* I will be looking for a dairy-free/vegan version!

-Free Recipe Friday--Jan. 11, 2013

Today's -Free Recipe is not one that I made this week, but did make it over the holidays. Remember my thoughts of baking and I wasn't, in the end, going to do it? Well, we were asked to bring dessert to a family get-together on Jan. 1st and instead of making one big dessert, I made single batches of all the different things I had wanted to make: dairy-free Rice Krispie squares, vegan shortbread cookies, vegan lemon squares and, my favourite, vegan butter tarts. I love these things so much! If you aren't in Canada and have never heard of butter tarts, oh, these are so worth trying! And that is why they are my -Free Recipe Friday choice this week:

Better than Butter Tarts

dairy-free, egg-free, optionally nut-free (I never make them with nuts), potentially gluten-free, if you replace the pastry tart shells with a gluten-free version (cooking times might have to be altered in that case)

from the book How It All Vegan! (10th Anniversary Edition) 

by Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer

1 cup raisins

1 tbsp vegan margarine

3/4 sugar

2 tbsp ground flax seeds

3 tbsp water

1 tsp vanilla extract

12 unbaked pre-made pastry tart shells (3 inch) OR home-made pastry dough

1/2 cup walnuts, finely chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 400F. Put raisins into a medium bowl and cover with very hot water. Set aside for 10 minutes. Drain hot water off of raisins and add margarine, sugar, flax seeds, water and vanilla. Stir together well. Spoon 1 tbsp of mixture evenly into each tart shell. Sprinkle each tart with finely chopped walnuts. Bake for 15 minutes and serve at room temperature. Makes 12 tarts.

----

My note: It is very easy for people to eat 2 of these at a time. Just something to keep in mind if you are making for a crowd of people!

Yummy Shake'N Bake Gluten-Free Supper

At the grocery store last week, my 15-year old was looking at a Shake 'N Bake BBQ Chicken Glaze package. No wheat, no gluten. She asked if we could have it. Sure! Why not? That makes for a supper that's both gluten-free and dairy-free.

There was a recipe on the back for the glazed chicken to cook on top of slices of peppers and purple onions. I don't have purple onions in the house, but I did have the peppers. We served it on rice (white rice, unfortunately, but not instant rice) with some fresh veggies. I remembered to take a picture after I'd eaten some. (Woops.)

While it did have a barbecue taste to it, it was a lot like fajitas, to be honest. Which makes it a wheat-free "fajita" option for my daughter. This has got me thinking about finding a spice recipe for fajitas and using it to make something similar, but only veggies, no chicken, for a vegan option. Regardless, it was very tasty and everyone was happy--which is a difficult feat in this house with new meals. lol.

There is a version of the recipe here, but that's not what's on my box. You know what? Why don't I just type out the recipe that's on the box since it doesn't seem to exist elsewhere:

SHAKE'N BAKE Quick Oven "Stir-Fry"
Prep: 10 min | Total: 30 min | Preheat oven to 375F | Makes 4 servings

Preheat oven to 375F.
Spread 3 cups assorted pepper strips (green, red and yellow) and 1 sliced red onion onto bottom of shallow foil-lined baking pan.
Coat 1 lb (450g) boneless chicken breasts, cut into strips with 1 pouch SHAKE'N BAKE BBQ Chicken Glaze Coating Mix; place over vegetables. Sprinkle with any remaining coating mix.
Bake 20 min. or until chicken is cooked though.
Meanwhile, cook 2 cups instant brown rice as directed on package; spoon onto serving plate. Top with chicken mixture.
Best of season: Prepare using your choice of fresh vegetables, such as sliced mushrooms, celery slices, zucchini slices and/or broccoli florets.

If you know of a homemade fajita-type seasoning that could be used, or maybe a tried-and-true veggie fajita recipe, please share!

Our Gluten-Free Trial

As I mentioned in previous posts, my 15-year old daughter decided to finally try going gluten-free. She was starting to have daily stomach complaints, pain, bloating and we'd suspected at least wheat before, and she was desperate for some relief, so she went for it. First evening, pain ended up worse than before, but within a few days, she had no pain, her stomach was flattest its been in ages and she was feeling good.

We lasted about a week and a half gluten-free before holiday celebrations hit and she decided to indulge here and there. And so did I. ;) But to backtrack, the first day of going gluten-free was okay, the next two days were very hard to make the switch. After that, it didn't seem like a huge deal. Yes, I had my evenings where I was going, "Oh my gosh, what are we going to eat?" but I figured things out. With the internet, you can find just about any recipe you want by listing ingredients you have on hand that you think would go well together! I managed to find this one evening:

Full recipe at http://riappyayan.blogspot.ca/2010/07/mexican-kidney-beans-rice.html

I slightly modified it (didn't have tomato paste, for example) but it was definitely a keeper recipe!  And if you use vegetable stock (Campbell's vegetable broth is gluten-free; the chicken broth isn't), the recipe is not only gluten-free, but vegan, as well.

Since being back on wheat, I'm feeling blah again. But since so many of the wheat things around here are junk (German lebkuchen, for example, and stollen) with sugar, hard to know how much of it is wheat and how much of it is sugar. I don't have any desire for bread though. Nor the baked goods I had intended to make and haven't. I'm eager to get back to the wheat-free/gluten-free eating we were doing. I have this aversion now, which I should probably pay attention to!

My mother tried to tell me that it wasn't healthy to be on a gluten-free diet if you didn't need to be on it. My mother's an intelligent woman, but she doesn't seem to realize that what she said makes no sense. She's just going off of something she read somewhere. If celiacs can be healthy on a gluten-free diet, there's no reason others can't be. This isn't like the recommended diabetic diet where it's playing around with your blood sugars; it's just a matter of having gluten in your system or not. Since I definitely felt better being wheat/gluten-free (I hardly eat other gluten than wheat, so hard to know if it's wheat or gluten), then, by golly, I'm going to aim to pretty much eliminate wheat from my diet regardless of what certain experts may say (other experts say none of us should be eating gluten)! I'm thinking about convincing--or forcing--my 12-year old son to try, too. He has absolutely horrid dry skin on his hands every winter. We tried eliminating dairy last winter or the winter before and it had no effect. Something in his system is causing this! It's so bad that if I don't make sure he gets hand cream on his hands, they end up cracking and bleeding. And, yes, I have to make sure cream gets on him because he doesn't seem to pay any attention to it until it does start cracking and bleeding.

There has been some good things so far about going gluten-free:

1. Improved health.
2. Increased knowledge about using things such as digestive enzymes. Definitely helps my daughter and I've taken some a couple of times and I find my intestinal area seems flatter than usual--less inflammation?
3. Increased experimentation with recipes. Rather than eating the same old, same old, I've been forced to go beyond, find new recipes, try different things. Things I had wanted to do in the past but it took my daughter's health to really push me through the comfort zone barrier.
4. Seeing how we did reasonably easily manage to make the switch--yes, we still had our moments of going "Arrrrrrgh!"--it has me thinking more about my switching to a vegan (or beegan--using honey) diet and at least 50% raw. It can be done; it'd be nice if it didn't take a health crisis to finally do it.

I'll leave you today with just some of my finds during my gluten-free search:

The Naked Kitchen's Gluten-Free Sample Meal Plan 

Celiac Teen

Gluten-Free Vegan

Serendipitous Vegan

Day 5 -- Pre-Christmas Challenge: Eat a Salad!

Already at

So far so good here. I've been meeting all my general challenge goals (raw mornings, exercises to help strengthen glutes to help with IT band problems, still keeping up the yoga) including the daily extra challenge. I got 8 cups of water yesterday, but it doesn't seem to have been enough. When I got several days without enough and get dehydrated, rehydration seems to require more. I am soooo thirsty this morning, it's just crazy. I'm not even hungry, I just want water and am probably on my third cup already (it's only 8:30 am here).

I did stay away from junk yesterday, too, to carry over the previous day challenge. That made three days in a row because I didn't have any junk on Saturday, even though it wasn't set up as a challenge then. I am already feeling somehow better than I've felt in sometime, even though my neck glands are super swollen today. Hard to know if it's my system clearing out due to the improved food consumption, the fact that it's that time of year where illness about and 5 of my 11 students yesterday did not show up due to illness, or a combination thereof. I don't have a desire at the moment to say okay to junk. Why would I want to mess it up by succumbing to sweets that give me headaches or junk that just makes me feel gross? Although, really, corn Tostitos and Daiya cheese don't make me feel blah, but dang, the salt and fat content can't be good for me as a regular part of my diet! I keep toying with the idea of cutting out junk completely, to thinking that I'm not against the occasional treat--and a treat that doesn't make me feel worse (Sarma's truffles don't affect me negatively at all, for example)--just against the idea of having bad treats every single day, which is what I had slipped into. I suppose raw treats would be the thing to really allow myself.

In any case, enough of that rambling!

Are you following along? Did you do the water challenge yesterday?

What to do for Day 5? I was thinking last night today is a good day to do something extra for physical activity. But then I caused a minor back spasm before going to bed and this morning, my one knee is not cooperating. My back isn't in spasm anymore, but I massaged my lower back this morning just to see and the whole area is super tender. So, pushing myself more physically is out of the question today!  It's already a challenge to go up and down the stairs. lol. I figured another food choice could be good. And salad sounds delicious, probably because it's been (shamefully) days since I had one. My challenge today, therefore, is to eat a salad! Our bodies will thank us! I'll be taking the time to make Mimi Kirk's Raw Caesar Salad. It is sooooo good and very worth the effort! I know I've shared it before but dang, it really is that good!




Written recipe: http://youngonrawfood.com/caesar-sala/ I use Bragg's instead of Tamari and it works just fine!

See you tomorrow!

Life

Life is interesting, isn't it? You can be going along, building momentum, feeling great about your progress (or the progress you are about to begin) then BAM! Everything comes tumbling down!

Since my last post, a lot of life has happened, including being sick for 3 weeks (nope, not kidding; still not over it), a gazillion activities, problems with school... It's really got me thinking about, "Am I just moving along through life and whatever comes my way or am I really thinking about what's most important and making sure to get it done?"

I feel like I want to do too much. And not just want, I set up plans and try to do too much. (Isn't there a book or something about women who do too much?) Or I set up the plan and feel guilty for not moving forward with it for whatever reason. I am beginning to wonder how many of my plans should not have been made in the first place! Would I still be sick if I stuck with the things that were most important? Possibly. But trying to do too much doesn't help.

And life continues on regardless. I guess I'm just hitting a point where I really want to feel like I'm making the most of my life not in quantity of things I get done, but in terms of the important-to-me quality of things I get done. Time to do a little soul searching. :)

On the up side of things, I finally tried Mimi Kirk's Raw Caesar Salad.

So good!!! Definitely a keep and one I will want to make often. Does it taste quite like Caesar salad? I don't know, it's been so long since I've had it. But I don't care: it's that good. It makes quite a lot of dressing so if you are the only one eating, you can store the rest in a container in the fridge. It will be gooey, but put a dollop on the size of salad you want, toss, add the cashew parmesan and you're good to go.

My first ever vegan lasagna!

Yesterday was my mom's birthday. She specifically requested that I make the family recipe lasagna; for whatever reason, she doesn't make it for herself anymore, so it's usually requested for special occasions, like her birthday and Mother's Day.

But that lasagna has regular cottage cheese and mozzarella in it, which I'm allergic to, so I can't eat it. What I've done the past couple of times is simply take some of the tomato-meat sauce and create a mini lasagna on the side with some noodles, the sauce and Daiya cheese. It's not quite the same.

This time, I decided I would go a step further and make myself a small vegan and soy-free lasagna. I looked around online and didn't find a recipe I actually wanted to do, but it gave me an idea of how to make a little lasagna for myself. I bought some mushrooms (which I forgot to put in), zucchini and baby spinach. I had wanted to try gluten-free, but couldn't find gf lasagna noodles at the store I was at. I made the lasagna just like the regular recipe, but put veggies in the layers and had far less cheese. Here's an initial look:

I forgot to take more pictures after that, so unfortunately, that's all I can show you! Sauce got added on top, then some Daiya, then another layer of noodles and so on. The sauce is just Classico Tomato and Basil and then I added in some rosemary. I think next time I'll simmer myself some of my recipe's traditional sauce of tomato sauce and rosemary and get that flavour in it instead.

Well, my supper last night was delicious! At one point, I slightly panicked because with the Daiya mozzarella shreds and just eating the lasagna, I thought for a second I'd made a mistake and had had dairy cheese. (Oy, would that have made me sick!)

All right, I guess I should try to write up a recipe, eh?

Simple Soy-Free Vegan Lasagna
*a jar of your choice of tomato sauce OR simmer a large can of tomato sauce with 1/2 tsp of rosemary for 45 minutes (use less if making a "mini lasagna")
*6 cooked lasagna noodles (or 9, if you want more layers) for a full-sized lasagna; 3 for a "mini lasagna" like in the photo
*baby spinach
*slices of zucchini
*sliced mushrooms (or leave them out since I did by accident)
*Daiya mozzarella shreds

1. Spoon a layer of sauce on the bottom of the pan.
2. Arrange a layer of lasagna noodles. (In the photo, it is one noodle cut in half.)
3. Layer zucchini, spinach and mushrooms. How much all depends on how you like it! You can see I didn't put too much for my first attempt.
4. Spoon sauce over top.
5. Sprinkle some Daiya cheese over top of that. Be careful: You won't need anywhere near the amount of cheese you might put in a "regular" lasagna!
6. Place another layer of noodles.
7. Place layers of vegetables.
8. Spoon sauce over top.
9. At this point, my traditional recipe would have cheese put over top. I however, put another layer of noodles and more sauce before adding the cheese.

Bake in oven at 350 for about 30 minutes.

Jiffy Cinnamon Rolls

The kids have been asking me for cinnamon rolls for at least a couple of weeks. I had found a gluten-free recipe that I wanted to try, but when I sat down to prepare it today, I discovered I'm missing a key ingredient for the gluten-free flour component. So, I said I would maybe make the old standby.

The old standby is a recipe I got from my mother-in-law, but modified so that it is dairy-free, which actually makes the recipe vegan, as well. It's similar to some other Jiffy Cinnamon Rolls recipes I looked up online, but not exactly the same, so I think it's okay for me to go ahead and call it that and to share my version:

Lightly grease or spray a 13" x 9" baking pan.

4 cups flour (I used unbleached all-purpose)
4 tbsp sugar
8 tsp baking powder (or if you have the 10mL dessert spoon, you could do 4 of those, or 2 tbsp + 2 tsp of baking powder)
2 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegan "butter" (I used Becel Vegan tonight; I've never tried it with Earth Balance. I have made them with Fleischmann's, but that would make it dairy-free and not vegan; Fleischmann's has vitamin D3 in it, which is from an animal source, and Becel Vegan uses D2.)
2 cups non-dairy milk (if using rice milk, use a little less; this evening, I used vanilla rice milk because the store was all out of the regular when I went! it didn't affect the taste at all)

Another 1/2-2/3 cup of "butter" for the topping
1.5 cups brown sugar
Cinnamon (no specific amount given)

Put the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Cut in the butter until crumbly. Make a well in the centre and pour the milk into the well. Stir it all to form a soft dough.

Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface (you may need some extra flour, especially if you used rice milk). Knead 8-10 times. Roll the dough into a rectangle about 1/3" thick. [I'm not sure I've ever gotten the thickness right, but they've always turned out delicious! I think it actually works better to have it a bit thicker, more like 1/2" or even thicker: the filling becomes that much thicker and yummier.]

Melt the butter. While you are doing that, sprinkle/spread the brown sugar onto the rolled dough. [I tend to not go all the way to the edges, but I should!] Pour the butter over the brown sugar. Sprinkle cinnamon all over the brown sugar. [I would like to be able to give you an idea of roughly how much, but I can't. Mine don't always taste like cinnamon rolls. They still taste delicious, but perhaps more of a caramel roll than a cinnamon roll. I have sprinkled what I thought was a lot, over all the brown sugar, and apparently, that's not enough. I guess I'm saying: it's kind of hard to have too much! lol]

Roll the dough while you are facing it horizontally (so, longest part is left to right). Cut the roll into 12 slices and place in the greased pan. Bake at 400F for 20-25 minutes.

Let cool 5-10+ minutes and enjoy!

Today's Raw Lunch

My daughter was going to eat veggie sushi for lunch (a recipe from Gillian McKeith's You Are What You Eat Cookbook: More Than 150 Healthy and Delicious Recipes), but didn't end up doing it (had a sandwich instead), but I was going to base my lunch off the sushi idea. I don't like the seaweed (I've tried more than once; I just can't handle the texture, taste nor smell) and I didn't want the grains, so I decided I was just going to have lettuce wraps. Well, the first greens I came across in the fridge were a head of romaine. Since the rib is too stiff for wraps, I sliced that part out and ended up having a kind of sushi roll. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take a picture until I'd already eaten 4 of them:

I'd call this a recipe share, but it's almost not a recipe: I put some store-bought hummus on some of them, not on others, just for variety. For filling, I kept it simple: cucumber matchsticks, shredded carrot, alfalfa sprouts. For one, I tried some very thin slices of avocado. The ones with the hummus definitely tasted better than the ones without and I liked the taste and texture of the one with the avocado (but that one didn't have hummus). I'm sure there is so much more I could consider using as a filling. (If anybody reading this has some suggestions, I'm all ears!) Okay, let's make it more formal:

*romaine or other green, sliced long and thin
*shredded carrot
*matchstick cucumbers (just cut your cucumber in matchstick pieces)
*avocado
*alfalfa sprouts
*hummus
*other filling you can think of

Spread some hummus on whichever leaves you wish, put down the sprouts first (seems to help with the rolling to have the sprouts UNDER the rest) in the middle, perpendicular to the length, then put your fillings down in the same direction. I folded the one side over, then rolled into the sushi shape.

This is definitely a keeper on my menu ideas. (Oh, I just had an idea: Is there a way for me to include something like this with a supper for my family? Slowly ease them into more raw foods as a focus of the meal this way?) I should have made more than I did; I definitely could have eaten more than I did. But I'm feeling lazy today, the weather's changing (was sunny and bright and all of a sudden, dark clouds are starting to roll in and it's getting chillier; I'd like to just wrap myself up in a blanket and hole up somewhere--do you think it's an instinctive thing since there are threats of a thunderstorm this afternoon?) and I just didn't want to make more. I did have a bit of coconut "yogurt" as a little dessert of sorts and feel satisfied now.

I foresee the rest of the afternoon being just fine in terms of eating only fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds, but do have to remember to have a look at the Shepherd's Pie recipe to make sure I start it early enough! I find I sometimes have wonderful intentions and plans, then I go to make something and discover that it needs to cook for much longer than I had anticipated. 8-/